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Palestinians inspect a family home destroyed by the Israel army following a military operation after a Palestinian man barricaded himself inside the house in the Israel-occupied West Bank village of Aqraba, south of the city of Nablus, Tuesday.JAAFAR ASHTIYEH/AFP/Getty Images
A group of more than a dozen Western nations, including Canada and Britain, have announced that they support restrictions on imports from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, signalling a much tougher stand in their relations with Israel.
Canada, France and Britain plan to introduce a ban on imports from the settlements, joining Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands, Norway and Belgium, which are taking similar action. Other nations, including Sweden, Poland, Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Portugal said they were considering restrictions.
“We firmly oppose actions tantamount to the annexation of Palestinian land and forcible displacement of the Palestinian population,” the governments said in a joint statement released Tuesday. “The government of Israel’s actions in the West Bank are undermining the possibility of a two-state solution.”
Britain’s Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband went further on Tuesday and said that in addition to the import ban, Britain will also sanction businesses that provide services for settlement expansion, such as construction, infrastructure, financing or real estate advice. And it will ban all advertising of settlements in Britain.
“Today marks the beginning of a new approach,” Mr. Miliband told the House of Commons.
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He added that the British government will formally declare that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is unlawful. He also said Britain believes that ethnic cleansing has taken place in the territory “perpetrated by settler terrorists.”
“All too often the Israeli government has turned a blind eye to this, and worse, members of it have made statements and taken actions to support the forced displacement of Palestinians,” Mr. Miliband told MPs.
His comments and the joint declaration prompted a swift backlash from politicians in Israel and the United States.
The ban will “prove to be a grave miscalculation,” said Israel’s President Isaac Herzog. “I say to all foreign governments, stop. Step away from the dead end of sanctions and boycotts, and turn toward constructive dialogue and towards co-operation,” he added.
The U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, called the announcements “irrational.”
“I don’t understand what it’s supposed to achieve,” he told the BBC on Tuesday. “I feel like it’s a discrimination against the Israeli government, it’s a discrimination against the Jewish people.” Mr. Huckabee added that Britain and the other countries could face sanctions from the U.S. and Israel.